Church apologises to Charles Darwin over theory of evolution

[cleanhippie]

THE Church of England will make an official apology to naturalist Charles Darwin for criticising his famous theory of evolution



Coming 126 years after his death, the church's apology will focus on how wrong it was for senior bishops in the past to misunderstand and attack Darwin's theory about man being descended from apes. Senior church officials will post the apology in the form of an article written by the Reverend Dr Malcolm Brown on the church's website tomorrow.


"Charles Darwin, 200 years from your birth (in 1809), the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still,'' the article says, according to extracts printed by The Mail on Sunday newspaper.

"But the struggle for your reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests.''

But the apology by Dr Brown, who is the director of mission and public affairs of the Archbishops' Council, has been dismissed as "pointless'' by Darwin's great great grandson Andrew Darwin.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/indepth/church-apologises-to-charles-darwin-over-theory-of-evolution/story-e6frewsr-1111117484124


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Wow.

[provis99]

1. but the church still gets it wrong.

Men are not "descended" from apes; we literally are apes, part of the great ape family of primates.

[cleanhippie]

2. Yeah, but we can't expect them to get it all correct at once, can we?

[mazzarro]

3. Just wondering when the church of rethuglican party

will publicly and unconditionally apologize to climate scientists of the modern era for global warming.

[Arugula Latte]

4. Ah, religion. Always on the cutting edge of progress.

It took the Catholic Church how many centuries to apologize to Galileo?

[valerief]

5. Someone should tell the Church of Fundies. nt

[struggle4progress]

6. Article is three years old. Here's a link to what Malcolm Brown posted back in 2008:

Good Religion Needs Good Science
By the Revd Dr Malcolm Brown
Director of Mission and Public Affairs
http://www.churchofengland.org/our-views/medical-ethics-health-social-care-policy/darwin/malcolmbrown.aspx